Jan 28 2011

MMA in Greece

Category: Boxing,Conditioning,Jiu-Jitsu,MMA,muay Thai,Uncategorized — Rob @ 8:40 PM

There Is No Try

by Bill Pairaktaridis

Nerdy opening, I know. Doesn’t make it any less true, however. It’s a great way to summarize one’s entire philosophy. When you set your goals, you have to do everything in your power to achieve them. If you want to win, losing is just another step in that direction. Remember, you are only defeated when you give up. But enough of the philosophy. You came here for some fighting tips/advice/talk/whatever and that’s what you’ll get.

I did have a reason for starting this article with my take on the philosophy on fighting. The very first step I take before preparing for a fight is getting in the proper mindset. I train my mind first and my body second. I make it very clear to myself that for the next six, four weeks or even one week (yes, I’ve taken on fights on such short notice), I will live, breathe and sleep fighting. This is the time when I put in the most work in the gym, both in the weight room and the ring. It’s not that I like cramming in all my work in the last days before a fight. That would be stupid. In fact, I work hard all year round both for athletic and for personal reasons. It’s just that then is the time when I have the proper mindset to really push my boundaries and re-discover what I’m capable of. And even when I’m resting at home, I will usually watch fights of my favourite fighters, like Ernesto Hoost, Buakaw Por. Pramuk and others, so that I can maybe learn a thing or two. Sometimes I may not even learn anything but it helps get me pumped for the fight.

When training for fights or just martial arts, it’s important not to let your strength training lag behind in favor of conditioning. A martial artist needs to be a very complete athlete. They need to be strong, conditioned, fast and durable. So, I hit the weights three or four times a week. However often life and recovery allow. Now, I’m in no position to tell you exactly how to train. What I can tell you is that you need to train hard but safely. And injured fighter isn’t really much use to himself. I may not be the biggest guy in the gym but I do aim to improve on a week to week basis. If I find my workouts harder than normal, I take a step back and take a look at my lifestyle. Have I had adequate sleep? Am I eating enough? Am I psychologically alright? The problem is usually something as simple as getting an extra hour or two of sleep and you’ll be fine. But don’t be afraid to seek advice if you find your strength lacking.

Another area a fighter must be fully aware of is his diet. Since most martial arts work with a weight class system, it’s to your advantage to be as lean as possible, so you’ll carry the most muscle for your weight and you won’t have unnecessary fat weighing you down. To melt away the fat is as simple as reducing your caloric intake below your BMR if you’re an amateur fighter that trains 2-3 times a week. For a more active individual, they could just eat up to their BMR and let the extra exercise take care of creating an energy deficit for the day. However, keep in mind that your mind will lead you to eat to cover that deficit. So, you have to be mindful of what you eat, how much you eat and whether you’re losing fat or not. I fight in the -74kg class because that’s closer to my natural weight and since I’m around 10% body fat most of the year, you can see how that could work in my favor in the fights. In fact, I’m usually the biggest guy in terms of muscle in my class and my opponents feel it.

Of course, what makes us fighter is the fact that we train to fight. I usually train three times a week doing kick boxing for an hour and a half each time but when I’m getting ready to fight, I’ll train five times a week for a total of 8-10 hours a week and I’ll add some more conditioning in the form of jumping rope and jogging. This lasts up to a couple of days before a fight. I don’t train the day before the fight because I want to be as fresh and as rested as I can be. Besides, an extra training session won’t make much of a difference at that point. It all becomes a mind game after that. UFC Welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre said it best : “Training is 80% physical and 20% mental but fighting is 20% physical and 80% mental”.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that everything is within your grasp. If you want to get stronger, you can do it. If you want to get leaner, you can do it. If you want to get better, you can do it. Well? What are you waiting for? Go out and get it!

About the author : Bill Pairaktaridis has been training in martial arts for the past 14 years. He found a passion for Shidokan Karate as a young boy and later for Kick Boxing as a teenager. He’s currently a silver medalist in the national level in Kick Boxing. He also has a great passion for health and fitness and maintains his blog at http://herofit.tv

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Jan 15 2011

Children and MMA

Category: Injury Prevention,Jiu-Jitsu,MMA,muay Thai,Uncategorized — Rob @ 8:18 AM

By now we all know that MMA is mainstream, we are seeing it pop up everywhere.  With this explosion MMA gyms are popping up everywhere and the influx of new students is growing daily.  This is great for the sport and it will only continue to help the sport grow in the future.

This brings me to my next point.  These MMA gyms are not only being joined by adult students, but children as well.  I see the sport of MMA or grappling at the youth level as the next big sport here in the United States.  The children are the future of the sport and it will only help grow the sport to new levels here in the United States.

The one thing we need to be careful with, however, with our youth joining these gyms is trying to specialize these children to early in the sport.  Just like early specialization in other youth sports such as soccer, football and hockey, this could have a negative impact on the child athlete.

Having kids active in sports is great it sure beats sitting inside the house all day doing nothing but being lazy.  I strongly believe that we should have our children involved in some type of sports from a young age.  I particularly love when children are involved in gymnastics and martial arts from a young age.  Both of these sports allow the child to learn their bodies naturally by using different movements.

Now like I said earlier there are some things to look for when children are specialize in sports to early.  In his manual, The Development of the Russian Conjugate Sequence System, Tom Myslinski writes about how the Russian had a system of training their athletes from a young age.  He wrote that the goal of the Russians was to have the children be exposed to a whole range of different activities.  This would help develop their “functional capacities, motor abilities and knowledge base.”  (Myslinski, p5)

Myslinski also has a great chart where he explains some of problems that happen when early specialization takes place.   Two points that he makes that are of importance are, one, that there are “performance inconsistencies within competitions” and two, usually the athletes start to “burnout” by the age of eighteen.  (Myslinski, p6) With the burnout issue also comes injuries from overuse of the same muscles, joints and tendons.  Day in and day out, year after year of training in a very similar fashion will do this to any athlete especially at the younger level because their bodies are still growing.

So what is the take home message here?  As the sport of MMA grows more and more children will want to get involved.  Some parents will become crazy about their children winning it’s just the nature of the beast.  But as adults of these child warriors it is our responsibility to make sure they train the right way.  We have to make sure that these children learn how to use their own bodies before trying to control someone else’s.  Get your children involved in the sport of mixed martial arts but let them play all different sports as well.  This will only enhance their athletic ability in the future and just make them that much of a better fighter if they decide to take that path.

Train Hard! Train Smart!

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Dec 06 2010

Quick MMA Conditioning

Category: Conditioning,MMA,Power Training,Strength Training,Uncategorized — Rob @ 5:40 PM

As a strength and conditioning coach I am always willing to try new things when it comes to getting the most out of my combat athletes especially those that like to fight MMA.  By now people all know the importance of conditioning there is no need to pound that into the ground.  There are many conditioning protocols out there that coach’s use with their fighters.

Majority of the protocols out there “mimic” and actual MMA fight.  They make each set of the protocols timed to the amount of time in each round.  This works well for many fighters. One thing I have been experimenting with is making the sets shorter and raising the intensity.  I have been finding that there really is not much of a difference at all in the conditioning level of the fighter with these shorter protocols.

With these shorter protocols I have also have experimented with reducing the recovery time in between each set.  With the longer protocols I would use a one-minute rest period but with the shorter versions I have been using thirty seconds.

Shortening the rest time really puts the athlete to the test.

In this video I use the Battling Ropes and a forty-five pound plate to work on conditioning.  The first part of the protocol starts with thirty seconds of the ropes.  When starting off with a fighter and it is their first time using the ropes I choose one exercise and have them do it with the ropes.  As they progress and begin to work the ropes better I tell them to use whichever movement they want or mix it up for the thirty-seconds.  After the thirty-seconds is up he then moved to the forty-five pound plate pushes for twenty-five yards down and back.  Plate pushes are one of my favorite exercises as it helps with the fighters driving power as well as developing power in their legs and endurance.  This conditioning protocol is very simple but effective and last about two minutes.  The time however is dependent on the athletes conditioning level.  So give it a try and if you don’t have the ropes do the plate pushes for two round trips and tell me how that feels.

Train Hard! Train Smart!

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Sep 11 2010

Benefits of Gymnastics for MMA

Category: Agility,Conditioning,Jiu-Jitsu,MMA,Power Training,Speed,Strength Training,Uncategorized — Rob @ 8:24 PM

Gymnastics is one of the oldest forms of exercise.  Its benefits are great for not just gymnast but other athletes as well.  The Spartans, one of the greatest fighting civilizations in world history, were said to train in gymnastics. If you saw the Anderson Silva, Chael Sonnen UFC championship fight, you actually saw Sonnen use a forward roll to escape trouble.  The moment I could, my daughter was signed up for gymnastics because of the great benefits.

One of the benefits of gymnastics is learning how to control your body.  Controlling your body in just everyday life is essential but looking at it from a fighting standpoint, any great martial artist knows how to control their body well.  This development of coordination when training in gymnastics can also lead to better balance and can teach an athlete to learn how to fall to prevent injury.

Another benefit of gymnastic that can help any MMA fighter or Jiu-Jitsu player is the development of better flexibility.  Gymnastics athletes are some of the most flexible athletes in the world.  Flexibility plays a key roll in combat sports.  We have seen how flexibility has helped fighters escape from devastating submission that would tap many fighters.  Gymnastics will help fighters become much more flexible in the hips and the shoulder.

Becoming stronger and more powerful is another benefit of gymnastics.  Gymnasts are some of the strongest athletes in the world.  Using gymnastic in a fighters strength and conditioning program will also lead to great strength and power gains.

Above I spoke about how gymnastics teaches athletes how to control their body.  It also teaches an athlete or fighter kinesthetic awareness, which is knowing where your body is in space.  Why is this important to say MMA or Jiu-Jitsu?  A fighter finds himself in many different positions during a fight and sometimes on their back, at times on top of an opponent.

Recently I was reading an article by Dan John, in the article he was talking about different challenges.  One of the challenges was using gymnastic movements.  Using simple gymnastic moves this set of movements placed together challenged cardio and my awareness of where I was.  You will see in the video below how at one point when I get up I am trying to find my balance and find where I was as I headed toward the water.  In the first video I cut out two reps on each of the exercises.  The second part of the video we performed all reps. The small challenge consisted of; 5 forward rolls, 5 rolls over the left shoulder, 5 rolls over the right shoulder, 6 cartwheels a bear crawl finished off by a short sprint.  Give it a try; trust me it’s harder than it looks.

Train Hard! Train Smart!

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Jul 12 2010

Want To Learn More About Conditioning?

Category: Conditioning,Jiu-Jitsu,MMA,Striking/Stand-up,Uncategorized — Rob @ 3:12 PM

Ok ladies and gentlemen, I am excited for this Wednesday night, so excited that I am missing my striking class at Gracie Barra Long Island. What could I be so excited about? I had the honor of being asked by Scott Bird of Straight to the Bar to be the main guest for his TwitterChat 74. What’s the topic that we will be discussing? Conditioning!
Many of you know the importance of conditioning in sports and we all know how important it is to the sport of mixed martial arts. We will be going over several different aspects of conditioning, like when to do it, how often does conditioning need to be done, why conditioning is important in MMA and as well as other sports and what kind implements can be used for conditioning. You won’t want to miss this all important discussion. So if you are a fighter or just someone that love to train come join in on the discussion and give us your thoughts. We would love to hear what you have to say about conditioning and training. For more details on the chat just click here… http://straighttothebar.com/forums/showthread.php?9634-Twitterchat-74-ConditioningHope to see you there. As a little gift I will leave you with a little conditioning protocol that can be easily done in the gym using Farmers Walks, deadlifts and burpees. I used this with my fighter Jessica Richer and she loved it so give it a try.



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Jul 08 2010

Tires and Sledgehammers and Ropes, Oh my!

Category: Conditioning,Jiu-Jitsu,MMA,muay Thai,Power Training,Strength Training,Uncategorized — Rob @ 7:56 PM

Having access to different implements for training purposes is really fun. Lucky for me I am able to train with some of these fun tools. Being a coach and also training in martial arts I find that these implements of strength and power are great for training fighters. We have seen and influx of trainers using these toys with their fighters to enhance their strength, power and conditioning.
The day that this conditioning circuit was filmed I actually did not have strength and conditioning session planned in my day. I was sitting around waiting for my evening Muay Thai session when a text message came in from my training partner. It read, “Want to flip tires?” Now how could I resist? Of course I wanted to go flip some tires. Then I thought to myself, “Wait a minute, I have a rope and sledgehammer in the car from training a fighter, I will use those as well to create a conditioning circuit.” So the 15-minute trip to the field I was devising a plan, lucky when I had arrived another person was training with us and he brought a medicine ball. This just added to the plan and the fun.
So when I arrived I warmed –up with some tire flips then laid out my plan. The plan was four stations. A tire station, a rope station, a med ball station and a sledgehammer station. Each person would pick a station to start at and work for forty-five seconds at each station. Now sometimes when you train you will always have to make adjustments. During conditioning this is no different. When I was doing the tire flips, I was just jumping on the tire with really no thought. Midway through I thought to myself that I could broad jump onto the tire and this way add a little plyometric work into the training session as well. In the video you will see a little annotation of when this thought pops into my head. After the tire flip I move on to the Battle Ropes. For this round I just did one exercise with the ropes in the following sets I switched up different exercises using the ropes, so you always have that option. After the ropes I hit the med-balls for some slams and followed it up with explosive pushups onto the medicine ball. Finally to finish off the circuit it was forty-five seconds of pounding the sledgehammer. You know it’s a good conditioning protocol when your training partner turns to you and tells you she hates you. My response, “Thank you!” Best of all I still made my Muay Thai class. Remember Train Hard! Train Smart!

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Jun 30 2010

Three Cone Drill the MMA Way!

Category: Agility,Conditioning,Jiu-Jitsu,MMA,muay Thai,Quickness,Speed,Uncategorized — Rob @ 3:19 PM

In the past few months I have been working on developing my fighters speed, agility and quickness. If you are a regular to the site then you have seen some of the drills that I have been performing with my fighters and hope that you have at least tried some of them if not have incorporated some of them into your strength and conditioning program.
Incorporating these agility drills into your program will make you a better athlete. Like I have said before and I will say it again in combat sports such as MMA the top dogs are now the better athletes. So what does this mean for you? Means you must become faster, more agile and quicker. Some of the drills I have already covered were the Quick Feet drill, and the 20-yard shuttle. I have added a little twist to each of the drills to make them a little more specific towards martial arts like wrestling, Jiu-Jitsu and MMA.
The next drill I want to cover is the Three Cone Drill. In many cases they use this drill to test different athletes quickness and agility. Many strength and conditioning coaches use it as a base test and then train other agility drills to improve the athletes time on the Three Cone Drill. The Three Cone Drill is one of the events at the NFL Combine so it is important to many athletes. Here is what an actual Three Cone Drill looks like, and then I will give you the MMA variation.

In the variation, besides the fact that I much slower than the guy in the video above, I add a few different movements. At first you will see me deliver two knees, right into a back pedal and into a sprawl. A note as you backpedal, as soon as you see the starting cone you need to quickly sprawl. Seeing the cone and sprawling quickly greatly improves reaction time. The better your reaction time the better fighter you will be.
I recommend doing the actual Three Cone drill for two sets then bang out three to four sets of the variation. Get enough rest in between sets. This is training your agility not your conditioning. If you are tired you will not improve and it defeats the purpose of the drill. Remember this is a variation to the Three Cone Drill, just adding a little MMA to it. Train Hard! Train Smart!

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Jun 28 2010

Develop an Explosive Punch!

Category: Boxing,Conditioning,Injury Prevention,Jiu-Jitsu,MMA,muay Thai,Power Training,Strength Training,Uncategorized — Rob @ 7:38 PM

We all know that punching power is very important in combat sports that require you to, well punch.  Some of those would include boxing, Muay Thai, and MMA.  There are a whole bunch of other martial arts out there that use punching but these are just to name a few.  If you look at some of the most powerful punchers from the past like Mike Tyson, you will see that they use there entire body to generate force to deliver those knockout blows.  So we can all agree that punching is a total body movement from the ground up?  Great!

How do we develop a little added extra punching power?  There are many different exercises that can help us obtain a little added power to our punches.  Explosive pushups will help you increase the power of your punch as well as if you compete in such combat sports such as Judo or Jiu-Jitsu when you go to grab an opponent by the neck or gi for a takedown or to just control them.  We all know pushups are great for you and can make you strong.  If you have not already signed up for your FREE copy of the MMA Bodyweight Workout, you can do that up in the right hand corner.

Ok now back to what I was saying.  There are many different variations of pushups and all the different variations serve a purpose.  Explosive pushups help you develop power in your chest, shoulders and triceps all muscles that help when you are punching.  In a regular explosive pushup you go down in a normal pushup and when you hit the bottom position you push yourself up and your hands leave the floor.

The variation I will show you below is the explosive medicine ball pushup.  As you will see below this is a great exercise to not only help develop that explosive power but also help with your balance and as well as strengthening your stabilizing muscles.  As you strengthen your stabilizing muscle around the shoulder and chest you will notice how will become stronger and more powerful.  Just as a side note when performing this variation of pushup try and get the ball to stay still, you do not want to be chasing the ball around as you explode out from the bottom position.  This could lead to injury.  There are a couple of ways to add these in to your training. You can use them as part of a conditioning protocol or you can perform these after a compound movement like the squat or deadlift.  I personally would not use them after a set of bench-pressing because I want the exercise to be powerful or it defeats the purpose if you do it slow or already fatigued.  So check it out.  Train Hard! Train Smart!

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Jun 15 2010

Quick Feet for MMA!

Category: Agility,Boxing,Jiu-Jitsu,MMA,Uncategorized — Rob @ 8:47 PM

Continue to use speed and agility drills to help train my fighters, below I am going to show you a way to take a simple cone drill that helps create faster foot speed and body movement for all different kinds of field sports such as soccer and football. I then do a variation of that same drill for combat sports such as MMA, boxing and jiu-jitsu. Having quick feet and being able to change direction in sport is important in creating the best athletes possible. The same goes for mixed martial artist or anyone that trains in any martial arts. Being able to control your body and move quickly at the same time is essential. A fighter must have quick feet or footwork to be able to move in and out of range of danger or move in for the attack. This kind of agility work should be placed in a combat athletes strength and conditioning program.
The cones are placed 5-6 feet apart laterally and about 2-3 feet from front to back. Watch the video you will see what I mean. In the first drill you will shuffle laterally and as soon as you hit the cone you take a quick step forward. You continue to the last cone then you sprint out. Remember to keep your arms moving as if you are moving. The second drill is just a variation. This variation will help you move quick in and out of sprawls and knees. As you reach the first cone you will sprawl get up as fast as possible step forward and deliver to knees then continue to the next cone where you will do the same movement with the sprawling. Note that on the last cone you want to sprawl this way when you get up you can go into a full sprint straight from the acceleration position which will help in your explosiveness for takedowns.

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Jun 06 2010

To Program or not to Program…

Category: Agility,Boxing,Conditioning,Jiu-Jitsu,Mental Training,MMA,Power Training,Quickness,Speed,Strength Training,Striking/Stand-up,Uncategorized,Wrestling — Rob @ 7:51 PM

If you have been following my blog or know about my training philosophy, you will then know that I am al about having a solid program in place when you training. Some of the benefits of a program range from the motivational, knowing what you will be doing and hitting the gym hard, to just seeing the best results possible. I use my programs for my fighters to help increase their strength, power and conditioning in a progressive fashion. There is always a method behind the madness and it always works.
Even though I do not compete in MMA, muay Thai or Jiu-Jitsu fights I have always had a program that I have followed so I could get the best out of my performances in my martial arts training. Recently, however it has been tough to juggle the strength training, martial arts training on top of the strength and conditioning coaching and family life. At first this was driving me crazy not to be able to get to the gym and get some good strength and conditioning sessions in. Program, there was no program for a while as I tried to adjust the schedule so I could get everything in.
How did I solve this problem? Well first I put things into perspective. I had to think to myself what was the most important thing and of course family time came first without a doubt. I wanted to stay strong and powerful so the weight room was the next priority followed by the martial arts training. The only reason the martial arts training came last was because I am not competing or am not planning on competing I just love to train martial arts.
So what’s the program you might be saying? This is what I have done. I make sure to get two strength and conditioning sessions in. One session is in the gym, consisting of Olympic lifts, squats, deadlifts, plyometrics, other accessory lifts and conditioning sessions. The other strength and conditioning session comes in the form of a speed, agility and quickness session. This session takes place with my fighter Jessica. While coaching her I train along side her. This has two benefits, one it lets me get in that extra strength and conditioning session and two it pushes both her and I to compete with each other in the drills. I have written about the benefits of “team” training in earlier posts.
Now for the martial arts training, I try to get in one session of MMA training in every week as well as a jiu-jitsu class and a muay Thai class. If I am lucky I get in another no-gi and muay Thai session on the weekends. On one of the nights I pull a double session, a gi jiu-jitsu class followed by a muay Thai session. Now there are some weeks where I get all the training in and some weeks where I don’t it all depends on the schedule at home. Another factor that plays into attending sessions is being in touch with how my body feels. If I am fatigued and my body is not doing well I will take a recovery day. You need to figure out what fatigue is. Being a little sore does not count. This will help you learn about your body and how to react to your body.
I have seen some great results with this program. I feel refreshed in my training. My body feels better than it has in a long time. I have had more energy. That being said I highly recommend if you are a competitor in MMA, jiu-jitu, boxing, kickboxing, wrestling or any other combat sport I highly recommend you follow a strength and conditioning program for the best results in and out of the cage, ring or mat. This way of training is good for those that train in martial arts for fun and also like to hit the gym and be strong and powerful. So yes programming is very important and I will get back on a program for the weight room once more time is available but until then, Train Hard! Train Smart!

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